Inside Apple's Core, Steve Jobs Yells at Staff: Report

Published May 9, 2011 at 6:16 PM

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A new story that gives insight into Apple paints a not-too-pleasant picture of chief executive Steve Jobs, according to reports.(Fortunately for Apple, that Fortune story is not available to all online, but only by subscription or through an iPad app, according to the publisher.)

Apparently, dissatisfied at the progress of Apple's MobileMe, Jobs pointedly yelled at his staff:

For the next half-hour Jobs berated the group. "You've tarnished Apple's reputation," he told them. "You should hate each other for having let each other down." The public humiliation particularly infuriated Jobs. Walt Mossberg, the influential Wall Street Journal gadget columnist, had panned MobileMe. "Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us," Jobs said. On the spot, Jobs named a new executive to run the group.

The juicy lede is all that's on the Fortune page, and is an attempt by Fortune to see if readers will pay for a $20 subscription or $4.99 for a single issue, according to MediaMemo's Peter Kafka. (There's also a 99-cent version at Amazon.)

“This is an entirely new experiment,” Dan Roth, managing editor of Fortune Digital told Kafka. “We’re trying to figure out the best way of releasing journalism online. . . . None of us have any idea what works and what doesn’t work anymore.”

Fortune obviously gave some thought to what story they would use -- a "deep dive" into Apple with a Steve Jobs-as-villain/visionary teaser. How could that not attract the tech masses at Techmeme and the like? The surprise was the publication expecting some kind of payment to see it all. Have you paid for your version, and was it worth it?

If a success, you can expect to see more pay walls for more interesting content.